Zimbabwe Tyranny Grows

While the world’s attention is elsewhere, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe hopes to extend his dictatorship with a return to socialism, inviting business owners who oppose his policies “to pack up and go.” His government is taking farms from white owners and violently intimidating credible political opponents eager to get rid of him in next April’s presidential election.

He has broken promises he made in Nigeria last month during a meeting of Commonwealth leaders to stop seizing land illegally and end political violence aimed at the Movement for Democratic Change, the opposition party. Commonwealth heads of state were scheduled to meet again this month, but that was postponed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. pressure is also off Mugabe. Congress postponed action on a human rights bill that threatens to impose travel restrictions and other sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The greatest pressure now comes from within Zimbabwe. Mugabe, 77, faces the worst economic crisis since he led the country to independence from British colonial rule in 1980. There is no bread, cooking oil or margarine in the capital of Harare. Gas costs 70% more than a year ago because of inflation and government interference. Unemployment, estimated at 60%, rises as jobs disappear in manufacturing, tourism and commercial farming.

Agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, continues to lose ground as Mugabe’s supporters interrupt the planting season and invade white-owned commercial farms without knowing how to manage cows or the chief crops.

The president has painted his anti-white crusade as an attempt to redistribute prime farmland, held largely by the white minority, to thousands of black families. His supporters burn people off their farms and take their land without paying for it, a corrupt attempt to win more black votes for Mugabe.

White farmers aren’t the government’s only victims. The president’s men have beaten, tortured and killed supporters of the opposition party, silenced independent journalists and ejected a team of American observers preparing to monitor the run-up to the April election. Who can stop Mugabe? U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been asked by an international human rights group to appoint a special envoy to help the Zimbabwe government conduct a free and fair election.

The United Nations must make room on its crowded priority list for Zimbabwe. Unwatched and unsanctioned, Robert Mugabe may steal another six-year term, which would promise more misery for Zimbabwe.